The Covenant Crown
by The Light-Hearted Fool
Summary: Ocarina of Time - It was a widely known fact, in Hyrule, that Kings were highly ornamental in nature. They were important, to be sure, but they lacked the true power of the Queen.
1. Death and Life

**Warnings:** Crack!fic-like, AU  
**Disclaimer**: The rights to Legend of Zelda belong to Nintendo, of which the author and editor of this piece of fan fiction are not a part. This piece has not been written for profit, neither is it in circulation for profit.

**Notes:** This idea actually comes from a badfic. However, my friend Rio liked the idea, and I liked the badfic (because badfic is the best form of comedy outside of bad movies), so now I have to write a fic using the basic idea (that Zelda is male), for reasons I no longer clearly remember.

**Additional Notes:** I do _not_ think Zelda is male. I had issues with this in some reviews for _Reflections_. Just because I write it in an AU doesn't mean I actually think its canon. In fact, that means the opposite: I'm acknowledging the fact that it's non-canon.

***

It was a widely known fact, in Hyrule, that Kings were highly ornamental in nature. They were important, to be sure, but they lacked the true power of the Queen. Thus, the Goddess-given divinity of the crown was passed from queen to princess. It was an unspoken covenant between the Triune and the Hylians, one that brought fortune of all kinds to the Triune's chosen people.

It was also why King Faramond named his only son Zelda.

Tragedy struck the land of the Goddess-chosen when the Queen died giving birth to her first-and-only child. Their child was a healthy boy with strong lungs, and would have been celebrated as he was, if his mother had not departed from the land of the living as the last female descendant of the crown. Doomsayers would have started up at once, if they'd known that the heir she'd left behind was a son, and not a daughter.

Under the counsel of Impa, the late-Queen's hand servant, the prince was named as a princess, and was presented as such to the kingdom, in order to keep the peace. While it wouldn't do much to complete the covenant, it would give the royal family time to find a proper heir. Or, at least, that was their intent.

A few years went by, but no proper heir presented itself. The late-Queen had a brother, of course, but he was a younger man who, free of the burden of the crown, was quite reluctant to take it up by siring an heir. So, King Faramond stuck to his story about his lovely young daughter, waiting for serendipity to grant him his needed answer.

Impa took the role of the sole caretaker of Zelda, as no other castle servant could be trusted with young Zelda's most unfortunate secret. As Zelda grew older, King Faramond put increasing restrictions on who was able to see him. While the prince could masquerade as a princess in his early years (particularly if his hair was grown long and he was placed in a dress), the King knew quite well that puberty would approach and cause suspicions to rise.

Luckily, the king's overprotection perpetuated helpful rumors. The people saw nothing but a king protecting his only daughter from harm, to protect the memory of his beloved wife. To them, the princess was a bittersweet icon, not a worrying lie.

Certainly, princess Zelda was not a weight on the King's mind of a lie, or a reminder of a broken covenant of the Holy Triune. She was not a lie that the King alternately clung to and held at an arm's length, either. Princess Zelda was none of these things, in the eyes of the adoring people. She was a sweet and beautiful little girl, the bright and shining hope of the Chosen Kingdom who would lead the world, as they knew it, into ongoing prosperity for decades.

It was difficult, as Zelda became of ages old enough to learn. Obviously, neither the King nor Impa could wrongfully instruct Zelda about gender; it would skew his perception overmuch, and would cause him unnecessary difficulty when (or if) a solution to the dilemma was found. Instead, they had to explain, _carefully_, that he was a princess, despite being a boy. And princesses wore dresses, of course.

Thankfully, Zelda was a very astute child, and learned quickly enough. He adapted well to later teachings (because children can be more honest than they ought, at times) that he couldn't tell anyone that he was a boy. Any child could understand the idea of bad consequences, so it took little effort to convince Zelda that, when he was around people besides Impa or his father, he had to pretend to be a girl.

He understood better with age, when he was able to understand the divine covenant of the Crown better. By the time he was ten, he merely accepted it as an unfortunate fact that the kingdom needed to believe he was a girl. Impa felt deep sympathy for the child, in spite of (or maybe because of) his resolution. Living in lies was not something she would have wished upon anyone, and it was only through the threat of the kingdom that she took any part in it.

Impa was worried, though, when the prince expressed disconcerting dreams. They started small, unnoticeable for what they were, at first. They were small flashes that the prince could hardly remember, though they unnerved him very much. The few patches he could remember involved broken panels of stained glass from the castle halls, or strange old rooms that he didn't recognize. It was when spring arrived that the enigmatic dreams made more sense.

He dreamt only of the castle gardens wilting, every night for a week.

Zelda wanted to bring word of these dreams to his father, after that, but Impa thought it best to wait. The King was stressed enough, with negotiations with the young desert king of the west. Impa knew the history of Gerudo negotiations, and every young Gerudo male seemed to want to dominate Hylian culture, somehow. None ever succeeded, of course (the very fact that Hyrule stood through time was testament to that), but it was almost an unspoken rite of passage for young Gerudo kings to fail dominating the dominant kingdom.

That didn't make it any less stressful for the King, however, and adding troubling dreams to the list of things that made the king nervous would not help.

Impa underestimated the young prince's determination to be of use in protecting the kingdom, however. One morning bright and early found him up before Impa woke him, and off to find his father. She heard the prince before she saw him, walking down the narrow halls, telling his father urgently about thick ink-black and sickly dark-green clouds billowing from the west.

She arrived just in time to stand there, as awkward as the prince did, waiting for King Faramond's response. While Zelda's spirits sunk, Impa felt a peculiar mixture of relief and dread, as the King said in a loud, overly bright tone…

"It's just a dream, Zelda. Everything will be all right."


	2. Plan 'A'

**Disclaimer**: The rights to Legend of Zelda belong to Nintendo, of which the author and editor of this piece of fan fiction are not a part. This piece has not been written for profit, neither is it in circulation for profit.

**Notes:** This idea actually comes from a badfic. However, my friend Rio liked the idea, so I'm now writing this. I find it to be an interesting challenge, actually. The occasional request, or idea, from another person gives me a different sort of challenge when writing that I find rather refreshing.

**Additional Notes:** I do _not_ think Zelda is male. I had issues with this in some reviews for _Reflections_. Just because I write it in an AU doesn't mean I actually think its canon. In fact, that means the opposite: I'm acknowledging the fact that it's non-canon.

***

Zelda was a persistent lad; he continued trying to convince his father of the urgency of his nightmares – that they were, in fact, visions. For three months, he tried to convince His Majesty that they were too meaningful – too powerful – to be dreams. All the while, the visions became more detailed, vivid, and disconcerting. Yet, 'good' King Faramond simply patted his son on the head and told him that they were just bad dreams.

Of course, Impa knew why the King brushed off every single one of Zelda's ever-worsening prophetical visions. It was his greatest fear: Doomsaying. No one wanted to be the king of a damned kingdom; history was never kind to such people. The king had practically doomed his son to a life drenched in lies to avoid the Doomsaying. He did it to foster peace—to try to salvage some remnant of it. To think it was all for naught was not an option for His Majesty.

He was not a brave or strong king. He wasn't even particularly wise, really. The only reason Zelda had any sense of such an important virtue was that he had inherited it from his late mother. His mother's wisdom and his apparent ability to receive visions were valuable traits. If things had been different, he would have had a great future in the Church.

As it stood, however, he was stuck trying to find his own path, which seemed to involve an unrelenting drive to save the kingdom from the strange doom of his visions. If only His Majesty had such dedication! It was a shame that Zelda could not rightfully rule in the eyes of the Triune. At least his heart was in the right place.

Zelda was understandably frustrated by his father. His Highness even went as far to say that Zelda was only seeing what he wanted, in them. He told the boy that his fears were simply feeding on themselves, making the nightmares worse. That was his favorite way to brush off his son, as the visions grew more foreboding. Thankfully, it didn't once cause Zelda to doubt himself—only his power to reach his father.

He wanted Impa to do the speaking for him. Though he was a bright lad, he assumed that his father would listen to Impa just because she was another adult, and once acted as an advisor. Unfortunately, Impa no longer had any hold as an advisor. The King was suspicious of her, even though she had once been the Queen's most trusted confidante. To him, her knowledge of the situation was a great hazard to his status.

Yet, she could not find it in her to deny the lad his hopes.

So, Impa tried sharing her opinion of the matter, one day. As she had expected, King Faramond's usual congenial front vanished as soon as Impa brought it up. He turned on her, with harsh rebukes about how she was a fool for believing a child's silly nightmares. He continued to shun the thought that the kingdom was in danger, even after Impa tried telling him that it was a very real concern.

"I've fixed it," he audaciously declared, as if the matter was somehow settled.

"You haven't," Impa refuted, "You've only swept the problem under a rug. You have no queen—you have no princess! You have lies that were only ever meant to be temporary, and there is plenty of reason to think—"

"_Silence!_" His Majesty ordered, a command that Impa was reluctant to obey. "I have reason to think _nothing_, save that the princess is having ordinary nightmares!"

Impa seethed, and she hoped her expression and body language spoke the volumes she couldn't. It was one thing to call Zelda 'the princess' to the public. There was no reason to do so, in private. It wasn't fair to Zelda. None of it was, really, but he was due some fairness in the matter, some preservation of his true status. He deserved that, for upholding his forced sacrifice with no complaint.

If it weren't for the fact that Zelda needed her, Impa would have struck the king. As it was, in the tense, seething silence, Impa could barely stay her hand, even for Zelda's sake. The King was far out of line. He clung too closely to that lie, betraying his Kingdom, his son, and Impa's trust all at once.

After several agonizing moments, the king spoke, again, sounding almost reasonable (oozing deception at every level), "You are dismissed, Impa."

Impa managed a perfunctory bow, before departing. She was more than happy to be out of the king's presence. He was not a person Impa wished to follow any longer. His decided path of treacherous deception flew in the face of all her core values. Zelda was the only royal deserving of her loyalty and her services, and she was set on offering them as well as she was able.

With Zelda's visions worsening, and with trouble looming in the land's future, Impa owed such loyalty and service to Hyrule, itself. She was bound to serve the one whoever was most able to tend the lands best, if no rightful leader was present. In light of Faramond taking leave of his senses, there _was_ no rightful leader. Zelda was a better option, by far, even if he wasn't _the_ best.

Having been so dismissed, Impa went straight away to find the young prince. It wasn't hard to find him. As of late, he spent most of his time in the royal gardens. It was where, he said, he could see what was going on in several places unhindered by the guards inside. Impa had the suspicion that there was more to it, than that—that it involved his earlier visions. Either way, he was rarely found far from it, during the day.

He was watching through the throne-room window, when Impa approached, and he hardly looked up at her. "You talked to Father," he said, obviously trying to sound disinterested.

Impa shook her head, no, "To say that he is your father is wrong, Zelda. Blood does not make a father."

Zelda was not deterred, and replied, "But you spoke with him."

Impa felt guilt squirm uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach, but did not avoid the statement, again, "To no avail. He won't listen to me any more than he does, you. In fact, I dare say he listens to me less."

Zelda's glimmer of hope vanished, fading into a state of frustration on the edge of tears. Impa felt guilty despite her rational side; she felt that she should have done more to reason with the King. The prince had such high expectations, it seemed. It was a tragedy that his 'father' refused to live up to them. Impa wished she knew what to say that would ease his mind; she didn't want to lie about the king, but Zelda wouldn't benefit from hearing the truth.

At a loss for words, she just sat down next to him and pulled him close, rubbing soothing circles on his back. After a few moments of mostly silence (only interrupted by the prince's quiet snuffles), she felt Zelda begin to relax, calm down. Sometimes, it was hard to remember that the prince was only ten, but in such moments, it was all too clear. It was a terrible burden to place on a child—all of it. If Impa could go back and change her counsel to the king, those years ago, she would in a heartbeat.

"Are you all right?" she asked gently.

She felt him nod slowly against her shoulder, before pulling away. The silence continued for a few moments, as he tried to wipe his eyes discreetly, before he said, "I had a dream, last night. A new one."

"What was it?"

"Dark clouds were billowing into the fields of Hyrule, making them Hyrule wither. They came from the west, like that man from the desert."

"The Gerudo King, you mean."

Zelda nodded, "I don't like him, Impa. I'm _sure_ he _is_ the dark clouds."

Impa did doubt that for a moment—only a moment. Even though, historically, Gerudo Kings never had enough power to contend with Hyrule, circumstances were very different. The Gerudo King was just as young and ambitious as any other in history, while the King was weak. Faramond was more likely to bend over backwards to maintain peace, than fight or even _threaten_ to fight. It would be easy for the Gerudo to gain ground, if he was clever enough.

He was a grave threat in such a vulnerable time.

So, doubts gone, Impa nodded, "I can see what a threat he is, myself. Should I inform the guards to keep watch on him?"

It might have been a difficult question to ask a ten-year-old, but Impa wanted to show him her belief and support. If Zelda was unsure (which Impa was actually expecting), then she would offer her recommendation. Any threat should be under close watch, foreign "diplomat" or not.

"Won't they ask why? Or tell Father?"

Impa wasn't sure why she was surprised by Zelda's foresight, but she was, and it took her a moment to reply, "They are almost certain to ask, and word may reach the king. I'll deal with those problems, personally, when and if they arise. They are easily dealt with—the Gerudo are commonly viewed as minor threats. I can easily justify having them under surveillance."

Zelda considered this a moment, with a furrowed brow, as if trying to foresee all possible events. "Then… I think you should try it."

Impa nodded in agreement. It had already been her intent, anyway. However, she did not dismiss herself straight away. She knew the young lad was still in a shaky mood. It was unfair to leave him in such a state, stuck under a mantle he was unable to shed. Her sense of tradition disliked the idea of coddling any boy over the age of ten. But, coddling was not her intent when she pulled the child into her lap, to rock him back and forth.

The boy needed comfort and peace. If giving him that much was coddling, then she was more than willing to break from tradition.


End file.
